The green shine I noticed earlier was actually coming off of this massive glowing mole rat variant. It's not entirely clear what turns a wasteland critter glowing, but I do know that it almost always makes them bigger, stronger, slightly radioactive, and nasty as hell. This one also looks pretty pissed at me for killing its family.

The glowing mole rat, let's call it Glowie for short, grunted once and started charging at me. Bringing up my combat rifle, I began landing rounds into its massive physique. Rounds landed on its shoulder and legs, one even grazed its skull, but none of them fazed it. I kept landing rounds, but it just kept chugging along. Now a little freaked out, my breathing became erratic, and I started missing shots. Once Glowie sensed my fear and sped up. When it got within ten feet, the damn thing lept at me.

Doing a combat roll to my left gave me just enough room to miss the massive claw that would have taken my head clean off if I didn't dodge when I did. I was only five feet away, and its putrid musk invaded my nose. Powering through the smell, I aimed at its head and pulled the trigger.

*Click. Click*

Nothing happened, only a silent click followed by a sinking feeling in my gut. Either my gun was malfunctioning, or my mag was empty. Glowie recovered from its missed leap and turned towards me. Thinking fast, I flipped the rifle and grabbed it by the barrel. The metal was slightly uncomfortable to hold as it heated up throughout the course of fire. Glowie lunged at me again, but this time instead of dodging, I drew the rifle back and then swung forward as if using a golf club. The wooden buttstock connected with the underside of Glowie's head and knocked it backward.

The bulky mole rat fell to the ground, but I could see it was momentarily discombobulated and not out of the fight. While it was still trying to push itself back up, I slammed the buttstock on its head again. I heard a crack and noticed my attack split my rifle's stock. Discarding the gun by throwing it to the side, I jumped back and pulled up my Pip-Boy. Time paused while I navigated to the inventory screen. I selected my combat shotgun and equipped it. Putting down the Pip-Boy, the combat shotgun spawned into my awaiting hands.

Looking back up, I saw Glowie was now on its feet and shaking its head, trying to regain some composure and recover from the wallop I had just delivered to its cranium. Aiming, I pulled the trigger as fast as my hands would allow me to. Rounds started flowing out of the barrel and pouring into Glowie's head.

My accuracy was garbage, but my adrenaline level was so high I didn't care. I could see impacts on Glowie's head, and green blood started flowing from those wounds. Eventually, my shotgun also clicked when there wasn't any more ammo in the magazine. Panting, I let the gun down and looked at my enemy. Half of the head was gone, and the other half was a bloody, gory mess. A large hole bore through the center, and dangling green and red bits surrounded the wound. Having learned a lesson on ammo management, I quickly summoned a magazine from my inventory and reloaded my weapon.

Standing vigilant, I waited several minutes for any further indications of enemies. When it finally became clear that I wouldn't meet more mole rats, I dropped to my ass.

"Holy shit. *Pant* I almost fuc- *Wheeze* fucking died."

This was the closest I got to being in real danger yet, and it was a blunt reminder that a simple mistake could quickly cause my demise. I stood up and walked towards the corpse of Glowie. The creature had to be nearly five feet long and had weird green glowing veins running from the base of its tail to its neck.

Even though Glowie almost killed me, I now had a bizarre respect for this animal. Out of all the creatures so far, Glowie was the closest to causing physical damage to me. I gave the underside of the mole rat two solid kicks. I might have adversarial respect, but I was still massively pissed at this animal too.

"Fuck you, Glowie. May you rest in peace."

Having found some catharsis after assaulting a corpse, I walked towards the cave on the left of the tunnel entrance. Inside the chamber were several light blue crates and wooden boxes. Next to the boxes was a cooler and a duffel bag. I found a box of Dandy Boy Apples inside the cooler with two apples left, and inside the duffel bag were a dozen .308 rounds, a box of .45 ACP ammunition, and two Molotov cocktails.

Walking back into the center chamber, I headed into the tunnel to my right, which should lead to the next section. Inside this portion of the cave was a toolbox, a dirty puddle of water, and a novice safe. The toolbox only turned up some duct tape, but the safe had two frag grenades, a fragmentation mine, and a complete pack of 5.56 ammo. After looting this chamber, I walked out and headed to the last portion of the cave I hadn't explored yet.

At the entrance to the last chamber, I could see a distinctive yellow sign indicating that nuclear and potentially radioactive material was around. The symbol was on the side of an old broken-down generator, and right on the ground next to it was a fusion core. I jumped up a few times to loosen up and got ready to sprint as fast as possible. Getting down low, I leaped off the ground and closed in on the fusion core. The second I grabbed it, I turned around and ran back toward the center chamber of the cave.

I did this because of the higher-than-usual radiation surrounding the generator. While it shouldn't damage me if I were quick, I also didn't want to chance it and cause horrible side effects. Once I got back into the main chamber, I rushed and made my way out of this god-forsaken place. Exiting the tunnel, I was greeted by fresh air and sunlight. I enjoyed basking in natural light for a few minutes before pulling up my Pip-Boy to see my level progression.